EVEN A BAD NOIR is good, when film noir is your favorite movie genre, as it is mine. So it’s really difficult for me to name nine as “the best,” particularly when some, like The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice, would be really obvious, unsurprising choices. What follows though are some that I could watch over and over. A few are well-known, a couple maybe not so much. But they’re all great–perfect for a chilly, dark and stormy November night.
The Big Heat(1953) Gloria Grahame and Glenn Ford, with terrific chemistry, and a very evil Lee Marvin. Grahame–Marvin’s abused girlfriend–delivers sympathy for Ford’s plight, and deep regret for her own choices. Ford’s utter despair and silent rage are a great contrast to Marvin’s nearly psychotic character.
Leave Her To Heaven (1945) “Technicolor Noir” and much admired by filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese. The complex and selfish character played by the beautiful Gene Tierney destroys everyone around her to one degree or another. Awe-inspiring cinematography and an unforgettable score by Alfred Newman.
Point Blank (1967) Lee Marvin, left for dead in an Alcatraz prison cell, is back in L.A. He doesn’t want his girl (Angie Dickinson), his life, or revenge. He wants his money. Is he really alive and kicking, or is the entire film a death bed dream? We’ll never know, but who cares? This is a wild ride, in more ways than one.
The Killing (1956) Stanley Kubrick’s riveting heist film, an early masterpiece. One of Sterling Hayden’s best roles, with a clockwork-like plot and intriguing time-shifts.
The Tall Target Dick Powell is a detective in 1861, aboard a train full of sinister characters, one of whom is allegedly the would-be assassin of president-elect Lincoln. Claustrophobic, suspenseful, and unpredictable, it also, because of what we know would eventually happen to the President, has an extra layer of poignancy and foreshadowing.
The Narrow Margin (1952) Like The Tall Target, this terrific film noir, shot over three weeks, is set within the small confines of a train. With great dialog, like Marie Windsor’s assertively snide, “There’s another train… The gravy train!”
They Live By Night (1948) Nicholas Ray’s early, sweet and tragic noir, starring Farley Granger, with a tone that later would be evident in Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause. Granger and Cathy O’Donnell are the tragic lovers who, as the opening credits say, “were never properly introduced to the world we live in.”
Fall Guy (1947) “Was that the sound of heels clicking, or my beating heart?”Fall Guy is a very low-budget noir from Monogram Studios, based on a Cornell Woolrich story. A young man who’d been implicated in a murder, has no recollection of what happened, and must clear his name.
Dark Passage (1947) My list isn’t complete without at least one Bogart picture, and this is the one. On the run from San Quentin, Vince Parry (Bogie) meets up with none other than Lauren Bacall. After some low-rent plastic surgery, Parry is out to prove his innocence against all odds. A great ending scene.
TCM will begin airing the 15-part documentary THE STORY OF FILMtonight. It’s a fascinating ride through the history of film by historian Mark Cousins, and you’ll end up with a long, long list of movies on your watch list.
I loved the first episodes the best. From my Home Projectionist blog posts about the series: “During the first two hours of THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY, I learned that the first real movie star, Florence Lawrence, committed suicide with ant poison, that the first close up in cinema featured a sick kitty, and there was some hot erotic dancing going on in the silent movies.”
One of my favorite experiences was discovering Asta Nielsen‘s dance from The Abyss (1910).
(1958, France) starring Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie, Alain Bercourt; directed by Jacques Tati; music by Franck Barcellini and Alain Romans. Seen on TCM, July 21, 2013. Available from these sources.
The story:Five years after his first appearance, Jacques Tati’s M. Hulot returns with MON ONCLE, a film set along the dividing line between Paris’ past and its future. Aligned (as is the film) with the former, Hulot lives in a colorful, overpopulated Parisian neighborhood and, lacking employment, spends his days waiting to pick up his adoring nephew from school, and subsequently escorting him to his parents’ ultra-modern house. Filled with gadgets, some turned on only to impress the neighbors, the house seems designed specifically to frustrate Hulot, who unwittingly disrupts its operations at every opportunity. Concerned about his future, Hulot’s relatives attempt to find him gainful employment and pair him off with a neighbor, with little success on either front.
– – –
Lindsay:
IN MON ONCLE, there is a silver fountain shaped like a fish that has so much screen time that it is practically a co-star. It belongs to the Arpels—Monsieur Hulot’s sister, brother-in-law, and young nephew. They live in a house so obsessively modern that it has turned them into clowns.
When Hulot’s sister switches on the fountain, which she is forever doing for visitors, it gives a strangled gurgle and spouts straight up like a geyser. You see that fountain far away, in close up, and from every conceivable angle. Is is as if Tati can’t get over how funny it is, and neither will you after about an hour.
M Hulot lives a dreamy, impractical life in a city neighborhood full of color. He tries to do what his modern relatives want—the problem being that even they cannot do what they want. They cannot be colorless for the life of them. They own a red bicycle, green plants, blue pillars, a vivid yellow rocking chair. We first see Hulot’s sister wearing a pea-green caftan and matching turban.
She buys a silver garage door with an electronic eye that terrifies the maid. But her husband buys a green, pink, and lavender car with fat white sidewalls. These are anniversary presents.
This movie hasn’t got one mean-spirited moment, because Tati never invites you to look down on these people. It’s the human comedy, he says. Look at the colors of that.
– – –
Dave:
A CHIRPY, CATCHY FRENCH TUNE is playing. Stray dogs scurry, enjoying boundless freedom on these cobblestoned streets of a town somewhere in France. Precisely where, I don’t know, but I loved the two hours I spent there.
Mr. Hulot (director/star Jacques Tati) is like those dogs. He’s a happy, harmless fellow, taking pleasure in the little things. Such as manipulating a window reflection just enough to cause a nearby canary to warble. As with the carefree pooches who delight in finding morsels in the garbage, it doesn’t much to make Monsieur Hulot cheery.
Like the seaside resort in Tati’s previous film, MR. HULOT’S HOLIDAY, this is a very real-seeming place. I was immersed in the setting and its quirky, flawed inhabitants with all their very human characteristics.
There’s a street sweeper who’d rather do anything but sweep. A sweet, pretty young girl who seeks out the older Hulot’s approval. There’s a ridiculously fussy fussbudget whose prized possession is a horrid, metal fountain she activates only for worthy, impressionable guests.
There are the boys who pass the time by either making pedestrians have head-on collisions with street lamps, or causing drivers to think they’ve had collisions when they actually haven’t.
Then there’s Hulot. He lives on the very top floor of an impossibly intricate building that resembles a Joseph Cornell box. He tries, but modern gadgets and appliances make life too complicated. So what job does he take on? Well of course in a factory filled with nothing but dials, switches and complex machinery. Falling asleep at his desk on his first day, he throws the entire operation into minor chaos. But the side effect is that Hulot brightens the up-till-now dull and monotonous life of his co-workers.
At the movie’s end, the dogs are romping through the streets again. Life goes on. As with HOLIDAY, I’m sad to leave. I miss it already.
*Also recommended: Tati’s PLAYTIME and MR. HULOT’S HOLIDAY, as well as the recent, animated adaptation of a Tati screenplay, THE ILLUSIONIST.
– – –
Gloria:
WHEN I WATCH a Jacques Tati film, I feel as if I’ve been invited to be part of a clever, conspiratorial event.
“Come watch,” his work seems to say. “Let’s have some fun.”
So I’m drawn in, expectant, and hunkered down with an incessant grin on my face, periodically surprised by the laugh-out-loud moments. I can’t wait to see — and hear — what happens next. Visual treat after visual treat appears, accompanied by perfectly calibrated silence and perfectly hilarious sound effects. Who knew that the bzzzz of an entry buzzer or an on-again/off-again fountain gurgle could humor me for two hours? I’m still whistling the theme song.
What I love about MON ONCLE is the sense of intimacy. I’m totally in for the ride, peeking over fences, down halls, and into windows. I see what and how Tati sees, mesmerized by his sight gags and clever points of view, those long, extended shots that give me time to look around, and each masterfully composed frame that can stand alone as a piece of art.
When the characters bring their über-contemporary chairs out of doors to look into their house to watch television, I feel as if I am pulling up my own chair to sit quite happily and watch them while they watch tv.
The contemporary world that Hulot’s sister and brother-in-law inhabit is monochromatic steel gray and full of new fangled complexity. Regardless of its symmetry, it’s a world consistently off-kilter, dysfunctional, and just plain kooky. Hulot’s counterpoint neighborhood is in stark contrast, lived-in and richly toned, as comfortable as his moccasins and overcoat. It’s not a perfect world either, but people have gotten used to how things work (and don’t work) there. Hulot replaces a brick in a pile of rubble because that’s where it goes. Humans are amusing that way.
I could watch over and over again when the neighbors try to follow the curved path of the sidewalk and teeter across the paving stones in the yard, but I bet that one day they’ll start cutting straight across and make their own path, the same way Hulot’s brother-in-law veers from the standard gray option and buys a car that’s painted pink, lavender, and green.
The world keeps changing, and we figure out how to live in our particular place in time.
“C’est la vie,” Hulot says. He’s absolutely right.
Lindsay Edmunds blogs about robots, writing, life in southwestern Pennsylvania, and sometimes books and movies at Writer’s Rest. She is the author of a novel about love in the age of artificial intelligence: Cel & Anna.
Dave is a graphic designer, and proprietor of movieLuv.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor, and author of the novel, Human Slices. Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow.
The older I get, the more nostalgic I am about coming-of-age movies, especially ones like THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT (1964).
Adolescent girls rule in this World of Henry, so it’s a pity that the title is so misleading. I fear far too many young females (and their parents) of both the past and present have missed this gem, which was directed by George Roy Hill of BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, THE STING, and many, many more.
Peter Sellers and his annoying Henry Orient character may have top billing, but this film is all about Val (Tippy Walker) and Gil (Merrie Spaeth) — two private school girls growing their friendship, exploring their world, and learning how to trust each other. They’ve learned that adults don’t always provide the best example in that department.
Val and Gil are sunny versions of Sally Draper from television’s Mad Men. In spite of, or because of, their family challenges and emotional armor, these girls are wiser than their years, independent, courageous, and growing up fast. They wear glamorous vintage fur while struggling with the rubber bands for the braces on their teeth.
Gil lives with her divorced mom in an apartment they share with fellow-divorcée gal pal Boothy. A non-traditional family, to be sure, grounded by love…and a strong reality check that “happily ever after” isn’t quite the promise that it’s made out to be.
Val’s parents, on the other hand, have basically farmed out their daughter to be raised by someone else. The school of hard knocks shows up alive and well with lines like, “Don’t worry, dear, unwanted children soon learn how to take care of themselves.” In fact, Val’s mother (Angela Lansbury) disdains and rejects her maternal role. In the end, Val’s estranged father (Tom Bosley) is the parent who finds redemption.
As disheartening as their backstories are, the girls remain optimistic and ready for adventure. One of the great scenes captures Gil and Val in a joyful city romp à la the field scene in A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, which is from the same year. New York looks lovely in this movie, and for a little bit of realism, the streets are littered with just the right amount of trash.
As the girls’ relationship evolves, so does their journey toward adulthood. Val turns out to be a budding groupie. She develops a celebrity crush on Sellers — concert pianist, womanizer, and con man — and the fantasizing and stalking begin. Gil, in the role of a true friend, becomes her partner in stalking. Sellers is such an unlikely object of affection for a young girl that it’s comically weird and safe at the same time. When Sellers is on screen (far more often than he needs to be), the movie deflates, except when he’s trying to seduce a hilarious Paula Prentiss.
The girls disappear on Christmas night, and the parents don’t even fret. In fact, Val’s mother (Lansbury) takes the time to have an affair with the object of her daughter’s desire before she even thinks — or any of the parents think, for that matter — that it might be wise to report that their children are missing and roaming around alone in New York City.
I recently saw this summer’s coming-of-age feature, THE WAY, WAY BACK, which showcases a collection of the same kind of inept, checked-out adults that we see in ORIENT. Because of today’s parenting rules of conduct, I found it completely improbable that the moms and dads in THE WAY, WAY BACK don’t freak out, frantically dial their cell phones, call the cops, or file an alert when their kids totally disappear one night, especially when one of their sons has been seen hanging out with an older man. In ORIENT, the parents’ behavior seems feasible — reckless, of course, but feasible.
Nonetheless, in both movies, the kids are resilient. They survive, learn their lessons, and move on, ready to forge their own better paths…in spite of the disappointments, dishonesty, and discontent they see going on in Adult World.
Long live the true spirit of adolescence.
If only we could hold on to it.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow.
What a score for film fans: The discovery of the talkie version of HIGH TREASON (1929). It was thought that only the silent version survived.
Kudos to the Northwest Chicago Film Society for its June 5 screening, “only the second showing since 1930, outside of the Library of Congress.” The sound restoration of this gem was completed by the Library of Congress in partnership with the Film Foundation, Chace Audio, and the Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association.
It would be nearly treasonous if this piece of cinema history wasn’t readily available one day.
Directed by Maurice Elvey, “the most prolific film director in British history,” HIGH TREASON takes us to an eccentric, Metropolis-like, and very contemporary future vision of 1940.
The United States of Europe and the Empire States of the Atlantic are at the tipping point of declaring war. In the mix are national pride, terrorists, squabbling border patrols, a split war council, and greedy munitions industrialists. The President (Basil Gill) seeks the fight. He doesn’t expect that the leader of the Peace League, the virtuous Dr. Seymour (Humberston Wright), will commit murder to change the course of events.
Regardless of the threat of mayhem, there’s always time for love and romance. Dr. Seymour’s lovely daughter Evelyn (Benita Hume) is not only beautiful, vivacious, charming, and fashionable — but she’s also willing to stand down an entire army in the name of peace, even if it threatens her relationship with her suitor, Michael Deane (Jameson Thomas), the commander of the Air Force. His troops, by the way, have a very cool black leather fashion sense.
Regardless of Evelyn’s moral fortitude, we get to watch her ready for a shower and dry herself off, not with a towel, but with an impractical handheld blow dryer while she maneuvers behind a peekaboo screen. Women can hold their own in this future world, but they are indeed vulnerable to being exposed in various states of undress when being rescued from rubble and inducted into public service.
In and around the politics and cheesecake, what amazing technology there is! Blade-Runner-esque public projection screens. A one-man orchestra with automated instruments. Electronic scoreboards tallying up peacenik enrollment numbers (like the National Debt Clock in Times Square).
The lovers chat and woo through their retractable Skype machines, albeit with a bit of difficulty in a humorous, modern-day “Can you hear me now?” situation.
My favorite scene in the film is set in an Art Deco nightclub where glitzy couples take to the dance floor, alternating between a traditional twirl and a kind of Vogue, simultaneously freezing for breaks in the music. I’m still wondering why there is a floor show with a fencing demonstration, but maybe it’s a comment on the art of conflict, better that it be practiced as entertainment and a demonstration of skill rather than as a real battle to the death.
A compelling piece of cinema history, HIGH TREASON addresses a conundrum of human existence: We are capable of such powerful and wondrous things — like being in love and creating grand cityscapes with skies full of floating dirigibles. Unfortunately, we are also capable of justifying our self-destruction.
Fun facts about HIGH TREASON: Raymond Massey makes his first film appearance here. Basil Gill, who plays the President, was renowned as one of the finest voices in early cinema.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow.
When I saw the clip below from THE GREAT LIE (1941), I had to see the entire movie right away.
Why is Davis SO hell bent on monitoring Astor’s intake of booze and sandwiches?
After all, Sandra, Astor’s character, is HUNGRY. “I’m not one of you anemic creatures who can get nourishment from a lettuce leaf — I’m a musician, I’m an artist! I have zest and appetite — and I LIKE FOOD,” Sandra rails. “I’ve been lying awake in there thinking about FOOD!”
With an almost nonchalant grace, Davis’s Maggie pulls off one of the most striking double slaps in cinema history.
What fun these actresses must have had creating this scene. I can imagine them on set, sharing a satisfying cigarette after filming, as if they just had sex. (Together, Davis and Astor rewrote much of the original script, and Astor won the 1942 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.)
All in all, THE GREAT LIE is a treat, full of goofy plot twists and turns. Watching Davis play the “good girl” counterpoint to Astor’s paryting diva is worth the entire 108 minutes. The drag on the whole movie is George Brent’s dud character and wooden performance. The character of Pete, played by Brent, doesn’t deserve one iota of either women’s attention. Every time he appears on screen, he does something worthy of a big sigh and a dose of disdain, like demanding that Sandra cancel her piano concert to marry him — even though they could probably go to City Hall after her concert, right?
In a nutshell (spoiler alert), both of the gals love Pete. He’s dumped Maggie to marry Sandra, then finds out that their marriage isn’t legal (due to Sandra’s delayed divorce). He has regrets, sees a way out, reconnects with Maggie, and goes off to the jungle. When the women think that he’s died in a plane crash — and Sandra realizes she’s pregnant and on her way to ruining her career as a concert pianist — the women conspire: Sandra will have the baby and give it to Maggie who will raise it as her own.
Hence, THE GREAT LIE.
But there is a GREATER, BIGGER, JAW-DROPPING LIE in this film. It’s a simple statement spoken by the doctor who is tending to Sandra as she goes through labor. While Sandra writhes and moans, Maggie waits outside, pacing, looking much like the traditional expectant father. On a break, the doctor says to Maggie: “A woman without a baby is like a man without a right arm.”
WHAT??? That’s SO not true, Doc! And could you come up with a worse metaphor?
Not only does the doctor imply that a man without an arm is worthless and devoid of all prospects (pity his poor patient in that sticky situation), but in his position of authority, the doc also gives voice to a big ball of hooey.
Certainly, being a mother may be one of the most fulfilling roles of a woman’s life.
But is a woman without a baby crippled? dysfunctional? broken? useless?
Of course not.
And that’s the BIG, BIG LIE in THE GREAT LIE.
To be sure, cultural messages upholding and reaffirming the positive role of motherhood resonate in film. On the opposite side of the spectrum, we all know about the cold-hearted and childless spinsters and stepmothers who appear in everything from traditional fairy tales to contemporary cinema. But I’ve not often caught such a specific line in a movie that so directly carries the message of “Procreate or Fail.”
Can you cite any other specific lines like that in movies? I want to make a list of them. Bad metaphors, big lies, and all.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow.
For its recommendation algorithms, Netflix uses something called “pragmatic chaos.”
“I kid you not,” John wrote. “I had rented a Godzilla movie and I got, ‘Since you liked GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA, you might also like YENTL.'”
David countered: “Since you liked I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, you might also like GIGI.”
Algorithms may be emerging as a powerful force in our world, but they sure aren’t as clever or as funny as Home Projectionists…and they can’t expand your movie horizons like our community of Home Projectionists on Facebook.
(We define Home Projectionists, by the way, as film fans always on the search for great things to watch … and who love the opportunity to be program directors in their own homes.)
We started the What Are You Watching?group on Facebook during last year’s winter holidays while we took a sabbatical from the Home Projectionist blog. The group now has more than 100 participants, all savvy and smart cinephiles who share, discuss, joke, and connect — and most importantly, make compelling recommendations for movies to add to your list.
Hundreds of films have already been talked about — from current popular releases like THE SESSIONS(2012) to the obscure, like the early Technicolor THE TRAIL OF LONESOME PINE (1936). As a result of the Home Projectionist group, my must-see list is on super-growth hormones, like some crazy beanstalk I will never be able to conquer. It’s a better kind of “pragmatic chaos” than the algorithms provide.
wikipedia.com
In addition to the direct recommendations and reviews, What Are You Watching? conversations go into all kinds of movie territory.
John didn’t recommend THE YESTERDAY MACHINE (1963) but at least we all know the movie includes “the world’s longest monologue by a mad Nazi scientist about how time travel works.”
While her family was sleeping, Gwen seemed to tell us quietly that she “was watching NOTORIOUS (1946) for the bizillionth time…I think it’s the most romantic movie ever created.” Jay agreed with her, “Not even a bizillion viewings can weary the charms and virtues of his artful masterpiece.”
Kelli, Andy, and Steve recently had a discussion about THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT (1967) and the power of watching big movies on the big screen, and when you can’t, they agreed, sharing them with a group of friends is the next best thing.
wikipedia
Eric reported that he had watched DINAH EAST (1970) and spotted Tara from GONE WITH THE WIND in a backlot scene.
Aaron told us about the fabulous terribles he picked up in a $5 bin.
There was a multi-day dialogue about everyone’s favorite Susan Hayward movies. And we discovered that Dark Shadows super fan Harold put together a tribute to Joan Bennett.
Joseph cited one of his favorite lines from CROSSFIRE (1947): “Tonight was a long time ago.”
To make me laugh when I’m feeling a bit down in the dumps, I recall the day Daniel deadpanned, “Electricity is kind of a big deal,” when commenting on the famous dance from DeMille’s MADAM SATAN(1930).
I don’t think there could be a better crew of film fans. The Home Projectionist What Are You Watching?Facebook group is open for your viewing pleasure and participation. Go to http://www.facebook.com/groups/homeprojectionist and join in today.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow
One the loveliest and most memorable New Year’s Eve scenes in the movies comes in the closing minutes of THE APARTMENT (1960). Shirley MacLaine abandons her disappointing lover at a party and runs, with her head held high, down a New York City street and up the stairs to Jack Lemmon’s apartment. Her face is so bright with clarity, determination, and anticipation that you can’t help but feel the absolute joy in her heart. The soaring score doesn’t hurt the level of emotion either.
While assorted and varied lists of the “Best New Year’s Movies” include contenders like STRANGE DAYS (1995), THE GOLD RUSH (1925) and, of course, the incredible THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972), THE APARTMENTstill tops my list as the perfect film for ending one year and welcoming in a new. Not only is it a love story, but it’s also a story of reclamation, a tale of letting go of the bad to let in the good, an affirmation that every day brings an opportunity for you to choose how you want to live your life.
This film, which won Best Picture and Best Director for Billy Wilder in 1960, plus Oscar nominations for the cast, is a pure and eternal classic in all senses of the word. Its brilliant script is insightful and honest, the performances are perfect, it’s rewatchable and timeless, there’s an enduring emotional impact, and it’s perfectly engaging to look at — all those things that make great movies great.
Although it’s billed as a comedy and full of great lines and humor, THE APARTMENT is far from a screwball circus. Between the laughs, the film highlights the darker side of office life, rife with seduction, inappropriate behavior, and the daily drama of moral hazards.
MacLaine’s character is vulnerable Fran Kubelik, an office building elevator operator who is having an affair with Mr. Sheldrake, the head of human resources, played with impeccable smarminess by Fred MacMurray. He is a married man, powerful, certainly not well intentioned, and operating without any fear of consequences for toying with Miss Kubelik’s affections. Jack Lemmon, in one of his finest performances, takes on the role of C.C. Baxter, a young, ambitious employee at the firm who is not averse to letting his corporate higher ups use his bachelor pad for their sexual liaisons…in return for a key to the executive washroom.
Nothing good come of it. The script even goes so far as to include a suicide attempt.
These protagonists, Miss Kubelik and Mr. Baxter, have somehow found themselves in compromised positions. They are two people diminished, as it were, by what others want and expect from them. They have struck grand bargains, rationalizing that what they’re doing is in their best interests. Unfortunately, with their amoral decisions, both have lost the core of who they really are.
All is not lost, however. Happily, they both regain “consciousness” in time to recapture their own identities and, in turn, find each other, learning life can beat you up, but it also offers opportunities for changing course and finding what you really want and need.
Could there be a better uplifting message for celebrating new beginnings and ringing in a new year?
If you’re staying in and still don’t have a movie selection for this New Year’s Eve , TCM is airing THE APARTMENT tonight.
Wishing each and everyone the best of luck and love in this 13th year of the millennium!
SPECIAL NOTE: Home Projectionist is taking a brief hiatus as the New Year begins. We’ll be back soon.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow
My friends laugh at me during the holidays when I dig out my DVD of a crackling fire and hit the play button. But then they do eventually admit that the video adds some wonderful ambience to my fireplace-less room — and they all end up looking great in the fire’s glow, eyes shining and skin warmed by that particular kind of light.
I think I’ve decided that the burning yule log is one of my favorite holiday “movies.”
Last week, the Northwest Film Society screened Charles Laughton’s very creepy THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955), billing this troubling and terrifying story featuring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, and Lillian Gish as “an underrated and oddly heart-warming Christmas movie that makes a singular case for persistence of love over wickedness.”
I wondered what other movies — traditional and otherwise — were on people’s holiday viewing lists, so I posed the question to the Home Projectionist “What Are You Watching?” group on Facebook. (To participate in the Home Projectionist Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/homeprojectionist/.)
A number of suggestions surfaced, from scary to heartwarming, movies like BLACK CHRISTMAS; FAMILY STONE; LADY IN THE LAKE; and one of my personal favorites, BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE with Jimmy Stewart falling head over heels under Kim Novak’s bewitching spell on Christmas Eve.
Home Projectionist contributor Lindsay discovered Rod Serling’s dark version of A Christmas Carol, the made-for-tv CAROL FOR ANOTHER CHRISTMAS, starring Sterling Hayden and Peter Sellers, during her quest to watch a variety of different versions of the classic Dickens tale this year. She made it through seven!
Home Projectionist blogger Dave identified a compelling and creative list of options inspired by the 12 Days of Christmas carol — for example, LITTLE WOMEN filed under the “Eight Maids A-Milking” verse — brilliant!
And I am officially adding the holiday yule log video to the list.
Celebrating the Winter’s Solstice (and what was not to be the end of the world) on December 21 with some friends, the crackling fire burned bright on my tv screen for hours and hours, in all of its artificial glory, next to the artificial tree. As one guest said, “But it really works, doesn’t it?”
There’s nothing like the light of a fire to enhance the sense of holiday spirit in a room. You can stream fireplace videos on Netflix, grab them from YouTube, or pick one up today at your local discount store. Once you start looking for them, they’re everywhere. I haven’t been disappointed by any that I’ve seen. (Warning: You may want to play your preferred fireplace video on a screen that’s close to the size of an actual fireplace. I almost called the fire department when I saw a neighbor’s towering inferno projected on their eight-foot screen.)
Enjoy basking in the glow … and have a lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow
You know that sometimes annoying song about the “Twelve Days”? We’re using it to highlight 12 Christmas movies that fit the lyrics of the song, more or less…
WHITE CHRISTMAS(1954; Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera Ellen, Dean Jagger; directed by Michael Curtiz)
Dave is a graphic designer (www.dhdd.net) and movie lover, and the caretaker of “The 3 Benny Theater” (also known as his living room). The moniker was inspired by an extinct movie house–The 3 Penny Theater–and by his black Manx cat, Benny. Favorite films: North By Northwest, The Third Man and The Dekalog.
We can’t escape the news. Tomorrow — December 21, 2012 — marks the end of the 5,125-year-old Mayan calendar. Is this a portent for the end of days or just another day like any other? NASA is issuing rebuttals: There are no planetary collisions on the radar.
But what if we were indeed headed toward a grand cosmic accident?
Lars Van Trier’s MELANCHOLIA (2011), starring Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg, was, well, melancholic. Riveting to watch, the film is full of memorable, dreamlike images, albeit self-absorbed (and pretentious?), a drama of depression and other end-of-the-world maladies. Spoiler alert: Everyone explodes.
But for my end of the world movie, I would pick SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD (2012) starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley. Carell shines as the regular guy who, like everyone else, has learned that an asteroid will slam into Mother Earth and destroy the planet in 21 days.
As the world prepares to meet its doom in assorted and various ways, Carell keeps going to work selling insurance.
He is numb, dutiful, and regretful — trudging on because that’s what he’s done his whole life. His wife leaves him. His friends have parties featuring heroine (why not?) and indiscriminate sex (“The apocalypse levels the playing field,” his less-than-attractive friend tells him, quite pleased that the end of the world has increased his opportunities for casual interludes). People do things here that make perfect sense, including wearing improbable outfits. A woman in a crazy getup tells him, “It’s everything I never wore.” That sounds like something many women would do when one’s days are limited, including me.
But it’s not all fun and games. There are riots in the streets. People jump from buildings. Carell stares blankly at the television screen as the announcer counts down the days. There is no hope.
Carell, too, loses his hope and drinks a bottle of Windex. But he doesn’t die. Nothing happens at all. All those label warnings about life were meaningless. He has no choice but to get on with what’s left. He wants to find an old love, “the one that got away.”
He gets a dog and a traveling companion in Keira Knightley. A road trip ensues.
Knightley’s performance is flat and doesn’t add a lick of soul to the movie. (If only she could have conjured a performance like Liza’s in THE STERILE CUCKOO or Diane Keaton in ANNIE HALL.) But Carell is so good that you don’t even notice Knightley’s flawed performance. The best thing she does is carry a Herb Alpert record around with her.
And records are important to the story here. Vinyl gets pulled out of paper sleeves for pitch-perfect songs like “This Girl’s in Love With You,” “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore,” and “All I Need Is the Air That I Breathe.” Of course, we would all play our favorite records if an asteroid was heading our way.
SEEKING A FRIEND is the first for writer and director Lorene Scafaria. It looks like a made-for-tv movie and doesn’t always hit the mark with the plot, but there are also some absolutely brilliant moments filed under “hilarious” and “remarkably poignant” that kept me believing in and loving this film.
Like MELANCHOLIA, there is a big explosion at the end. But there is also salvation right before the white light.
After seeing this movie, I thought about some of of the records I would play at the end of the world. One of them would be Todd Rundgren’s “Love Is the Answer” — with lines like “Who knows why? Someday we all must die.” Check out his 1980 performance on the Mike Douglas Show.
In the end, yes, love is the answer. SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD makes that point very clear.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow
THE LINEUP (1958; starring Eli Wallach, Robert Keith, Richard Jaeckel, Mary La Roche; directed by Don Siegel; 75 min.; DVD with commentary, available from Netflix or from Amazon as part of a boxed set, “Columbia Film Noir Classics I”)
– – –
IT WAS TOO BIG to be just another TV episode. In fact, it was “The manhunt they had to put on the giant-sized movie theater screen!” That tagline is referring to the popular television show of the same name, later known in syndication as San Francisco Beat. It had been on the air since 1954 when this feature-length version was made.
It’s 1958. We’re near Fisherman’s Wharf, when a porter grabs a suitcase from a disembarking passenger, (played by Raymond Bailey, famous as the banker, Mr. Drysdale, on The Beverly Hillbillies TV show). The porter tosses it in a cab, which quickly tears away, only to end up in a deadly crash. Mr. Drysdale is suspected when heroin is found inside suitcase. Is he guilty? Maybe, but police are on the case, and they think there are more people involved. Drysdale is brought in to face–you guessed it–“The Lineup”.
Right about here is where director Don Siegel loses interest in the cops. He turns his attention to the criminals, and the movie really finds its groove. In the freewheeling DVD commentary, noir expert Larry Muller and brazen author James Ellroy recount how director Don Siegel (DIRTY HARRY, THE KILLERS) had little interest in the show’s signature, DRAGNET-style police work, but instead wanted to focus on the crime and, especially, the more intriguing and complex lawbreakers.
The drug-trafficking trio of Wallach, Keith and Jaeckel have a mission to recover the drugs that other, unsuspecting travelers have carried to the city by the Bay. And they have no qualms about procuring them by any means necessary. Particularly in the case of the near-psychotic Wallach. But also with the more complacent but equally creepy Keith, who keeps a notebook in which he gleefully records victims’ last words. Jaeckel is the getaway driver–a young and immature hotshot.
As the killer named “Dancer”, Wallach displays an easy, genial nature on the surface, but in fact he has a rolling-boil of a temper that explodes into a furious rage against anyone who stands in his way, even children and men in wheelchairs. I can imagine Joe Pesci watching Wallach as he prepared for his “What’s so funny?” scene in GOODFELLAS. Method actor Wallach (97 years old, at this writing) starred in dozens of TV shows and movies.
Last but not least are the San Francisco locations. Besides the Wharf area, there’s the old police headquarters with it’s half-moon windows, the Customs House including its interior, the eerie, seaside Sutro Baths near the Cliff House restaurant, and a couple of half-completed freeways. A lengthy, tense finale foreshadows the classic car chase sequence in BULLITT (1968).
THE LINEUP is a fast-paced, cold-blooded film noir that, ironically, doesn’t hit its stride until it lets go of its TV show constraints. Hang on and enjoy the entertaining ride when it does.
Dave is a graphic designer (www.dhdd.net) and movie lover, and the caretaker of “The 3 Benny Theater” (also known as his living room). The moniker was inspired by an extinct movie house–The 3 Penny Theater–and by his black Manx cat, Benny. Favorite films: North By Northwest, The Third Man and The Dekalog.
I can’t help myself: I tear out articles from the newspaper. Relentlessly.
I sometimes wonder if this is a genetic behavior disorder and think of my aunt. She kept scrapbooks, stashed away in old Lytton’s Department Store dress boxes, documenting the news of her younger days, mostly about FDR and WWII.
She also kept an in-depth archive on the Dionne Quintuplets, Canadian superstars born in 1934, the first known quints to survive infancy.
When I discovered that there was a movie actually starring this famous fivesome, I had to see it. Maybe it would unlock some of the mystery of why my aunt was so seemingly obsessed by these miracle babies.
I have to say that THE COUNTRY DOCTOR (1936) delivered. Part promotional piece — the Dionne Quintuplets get top billing — and part well-crafted drama, this Darryl Zanuck production deserves a little more love.
Out of circulation for almost 50 years, THE COUNTRY DOCTOR was recently released by Fox Cinema Archives. According to New York Post film critic Lou Lumenick, this charmer has never even been shown on TCM “despite my lobbying,” and “no entry in Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide either.” (I’m pleased to know that at least one other person besides me is a fan of this movie.) Lumenick also writes in a Post article, “According to the AFI Catalogue, the March 4, 1936, opening of “The Country Doctor,” was ‘one of the largest day-and-date engagements in motion picture history.’”
Directed by the prolific Henry King, who would later bring us THE OLD MAN & THE SEA, LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING, and THE SNOWS OF KILAMANJARO, to name a few, THE COUNTRY DOCTOR is full of compelling drama and memorable scenes.
The action starts in Moosetown, Canada, where the populace of the timber mill town is readying for its annual closing of operations and pilgrimage to less harsher climates to wait out the long, cold, and brutal winter. A shocking number of the mill workers are missing limbs. Soon you know why. Within the opening seconds, there is a crushing injury in the timber mill. Life is hard in these parts. A man begs to die rather than lose his leg.
While the townspeople who are able to leave Moosetown climb aboard the last ferry, a few must stay behind. Not only does the country doctor have to tend the injured mill worker, there is a diptheria epidemic to deal with. Thirty children are piled up in a makeshift hospital, and the necessary medicine is in short supply. One of the saddest scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie is of one of the children succumbing to the epidemic, while her mother, desperate and helpless, looks in from the outside through a window covered in ice and snow.
So the story goes, not a feel-good tale about babies. The narrative traces the dedication of the country doctor, beautifully played by Jean Hersholt (the grandfather from HEIDI), treating his patients with goodwill, generosity, and makeshift solutions. At the doctor’s right hand is Dorothy Peterson as his loyal and ever-faithful nurse (and subtle love interest). You root for them all of the way. Our country doctor warms new babies in ovens or pushed up against roaring fireplaces. In the big city hospitals, they have something new called incubators.
In addition to the story of the country doctor, the film moves forward with subplots of romance, dysfunctional family dynamics, redemption, social consciousness, media frenzy, and the arrival of modernity.
The timber worker who loses his leg becomes a hero, fixing the broken telegraph equipment. A strict and unyielding father tries to deny his daughter her chance at happiness but she soars off in an airplane with her lover-to-be. The country doctor himself takes on his big city (and rich) bureaucrat dad. The Fat Cat logging boss says of his struggling workers, “Those people aren’t the company’s responsibility” and his days are numbered. There are daily heroics and political dilemmas. Modern times vs. the simplicity of country life. The adventure of air flight! The miracle of tonsillectomies! There’s even an impassioned plea for equitable health care.
According to film critic Lumenick, screenwriter Sonya Levien’s script “plays fast and loose with the facts” related to the Dionne Quintuplets. But does it really matter?
Finally, 75 minutes into this 95-minute movie, the Dionne Quintuplets appear. The story turns from a dramatic tale of hard life in the upcountry into a sort of home movie of the actual twins as they survive infancy and grow into their toddler glory. We meet Yvonne, Cecil, Marie, Annette, and Emelie, and watch them wander around doing the random things that toddlers do. This odd little segment of the film is actually too long and quite boring–and it completely changes the dramatic narrative of the movie–but gosh those kids are the really the cutest wonders of the world.
After the quints bumble around their playroom, each subplot gets a happy conclusion. Amidst the media circus that emerges, the young lovers embrace, Moosetown gets a real hospital, the doctor and the nurse seem ready (at last!) to be ready to admit their feelings for each other.
Only 75 years ago, the survival of multiple birth babies was considered a miracle. Now we have the Octomom. What a historic and heartwarming movie THE COUNTRY DOCTORis. I’ll treasure my aunt’s scrapbook even more.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow
The great screwball comedies of the ‘30s and ‘40s from acclaimed directors like Wyler, Hawks, Lubitsch, and Sturges are always crowd pleasers. These are movies chock full of star power, snappy dialogue, stunning sets, and buckets of style.
What’s not to like?
Sometimes, I fear, what is not to like is when mean-spirited revenge is played for comedy and a supposedly “happy ending” of wedded bliss is sure to be doomed because the bride and groom will, in no way, ever operate on the same level and with any sense of trust.
Call me a poop, but for that reason, I just can’t put THE LADY EVE (1941) by Preston Sturges at the top of my list of favorite comedies from that era.
You’ll get no argument from me that THE LADY EVE is indeed a funny and clever film with laugh-out-loud lines so full of double entendre that they’re actually shocking. I can watch selected scenes from this movie over and over and over and never stop being entertained by their hilarity.
I have a friend who often waxes on how THE LADY EVE is one of the most brilliant comedies of all, and I’m just using this space to put in my two cents that it’s a bit depressing as well.
Barbara Stanwyck is gorgeous as Jean, a manipulative con artist, and Henry Fonda is the handsome but bumbling Charles Pike (aka “Hopsie”) as her love interest — although you can’t help but wonder how the scenes would have sounded and looked with Hepburn and Grant in charge. Co-stars William Demarest as Fonda’s right-hand man is delightful, and Charles Coburn as Stanwyck’s father is the lovable criminal you can’t help but like.
On a trans-Atlantic crossing, Stanwyck plays the ultimate “cruiser,” setting her sights on Fonda when she discovers he is an heir to a beer fortune—and even better, he is completely clueless to feminine and cardsharp wiles. Within minutes of their first meeting, Stanywck gets him to her room and actually has him picking out her shoes and falling on his knees to slip them on for her. Who is this guy?
And who in the world is this dame? She is lusty and lovely and not to be trusted. You feel a bit sorry for Fonda’s Hopsie character, but the again, maybe not.
Hopsie falls hard for her but quickly finds out that Stanwyck’s Jean isn’t who she says she is. Hurt and dismayed, he rejects her. She doesn’t even try to explain that she has genuine feelings for him and regrets trying to dupe him. Couldn’t they just have had an honest conversation to clear things up? There could have been some solid comedy from that scenario. Instead, she turns callous and bitter and plots her revenge. She even calls him a “sucker.”
Once Stanwyck’s countenance goes cold and her wheels start turning on an “I’ll get you” path, the movie loses its laugh power. I’m not rooting for her anymore. I’m annoyed by her nasty spirit and smug self-assuredness that she’s in a fight to win, in the name of winning alone, not in the name of finding love.
If you’re watching THE LADY EVE at home, this is the point in the movie when might want to get up, pour yourself a glass of wine, go to the bathroom, make a list of things to do for the next day. Keep within earshot to catch a few clever lines however.
And when you hear froggy-voiced Eugene Palette (playing Fonda’s father) banging on the table demanding that someone feed him, settle back in. He steals the show. The movie regains its momentum here and as we watch the kitchen staff get ready for a dinner party—a brilliant series of scenes. This is joyful moviemaking at its best. But then the devious Stanwyck walks in, and the spirit of fun dissolves.
A lot of time, and I mean A LOT of time goes by as Stanwyck lies, postures, and poses, and we head to the inevitable conclusion: Hopsie will stay clueless and Stanwyck will get her man. And no one, in the end, will be the happier for it.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow
"The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth." Leo Tolstoy
EVEN A BAD NOIR is good, when film noir is your favorite movie genre, as it is mine. So it’s really difficult for me to name nine as “the best,” particularly when some, like The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice, would be really obvious, unsurprising choices. What follows though are some that I could watch over and over. A few are well-known, a couple maybe not so much. But they’re all great–perfect for a chilly, dark and stormy November night.
IT WAS TOO BIG to be just another TV episode. In fact, it was “The manhunt they had to put on the giant-sized movie theater screen!” That tagline is referring to the popular television show of the same name, later known in syndication as San Francisco Beat. It had been on the air since 1954 when this feature-length version was made.
Home Projectionist 